There was a day when hiring a hooker or sending photos of one’s private parts to women would be a career-killer for a male politician. But fame and notoriety have become indistinguishable. And the return of both Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner suggests that for someone looking to make a political name for himself, a juicy sex scandal might be just the ticket.

That’s our reaction to a new Quinnipiac poll. It shows Spitzer, just five years removed from his resignation as governor, holding a double-digit lead in the race for city comptroller. The same poll shows Weiner, who resigned from Congress over X-rated tweets to young women, now leading the Democratic field for mayor.

New York’s not alone. South Carolina Republican Mark Sanford gave new meaning to “hiking the Appalachian Trail” when he used that as a cover for a secret trip to Argentina to hook up with his mistress. He lost both his wife and his governorship, but in November he was elected to Congress. Closer to home, Jim McGreevey — who quit as New Jersey governor after putting his gay lover in a state job for which he was unqualified — was just named head of a Jersey City commission on job creation.

Whatever happened to the notion of earning redemption by forsaking political life for something deeper?

Charles Colson, recall, went to prison for his role in Watergate. After his release, he devoted the remaining 36 years of his life to a ministry dedicated to probably the most despised people in American life, prison inmates. Before him, John Profumo, the British cabinet minister whose sex scandal toppled a government, spent the rest of his days cleaning toilets at a London charity.

That was then. Nowadays, politicians caught with their pants down are plotting their comebacks even before they have re-fastened their belts. They’ve learned that the scandal that makes you notorious will in the long run reward you with improved name recognition — provided only that you are utterly shameless.